I didn't play Go online until 2020, and the start of the Covid pandemic. But deprived of Thursday night Go meetings in Cambridge I have started to play online. Fortunately there are a number of websites around where one can play over the Internet. They work quite well with a little getting used to or setup required.
One has to register on the websites to use them, and if one uses more than one website it's convenient to have a common username. (This I have failed to do because of different restrictions on usernames.)
Common username restrictions |
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10 letters |
Alphabetical characters or digits |
Until one has played enough ranked games on a website one won't have a grade, and without a grade it can be hard to get games. I got a grade on OGS by playing the bots (computer Go programs) there. The ranks on the different websites are not consistent. People have tried to compare those ranks - see Rank - worldwide comparison.
There are some good lists of online Go servers on the Internet - for instance
Sensei's Library and American Go Association. Real time here is playing a game as if you were at a real
board just it's on the Internet, turn based is more correspondence Go where
games take days.
Platforms indicate what clients the Go server can be accessed out of
(Android),
(Browser),
(iOS),
(Mac),
or
(Windows).
Server | Real time | Turn based | Platforms |
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Server | Real time | Turn based | Platforms |
✓ |
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✓ |
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✓ |
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